Rest for the Weary
by bluedawn01
Summary: Rose Tyler has been hopping dimensions for months and months with little success. Recently, however, her team has finally managed to alter the time parameter of her jumps as well as the physical location and, to her great surprise, she even manages to find the Doctor! And if he's short, Scottish, and has questionable taste in jumpers...well, that's beside the point, really.


_Three, two, one...JUMP!_

The Dimension Cannon shuddered and groaned, and Rose Tyler once again threw herself across the Void, hoping to find absolution, hoping to find her future, and hoping, if she was very, very lucky, to find the Doctor. She had been at this for so long now, quite frankly, she was exhausted. And finally, after months and months (and months and months and months) of jumping, her team had finally figured out how to successfully alter the Time parameter of the jumps as well as the physical location, which had made things even more complicated.

Of late, she's seen parallel worlds filled with flying cars instead of planes (or zeppelins). Two weeks ago, she spent four hours wrapping bandages and dodging bullets in the trenches of World War II (in which universe, she wasn't sure; the smell of blood and the terrified screams of young men dying too soon transcended simple barriers like Time and Space). She'd had a drink in a private zeppelin with the great-granddaughter of Melton Johns after her fourth reunion tour with the great-grandson of Joel William (and now, somewhere out there in the universe was brand new single entitled, 'Rocket Rose'..._It's lonely out in space on such a timeless flight._). And, one memorable evening, she'd been forced to hide in a cupboard for several hours when she accidentally stumbled into an angry triceratops parading about on a space station.

The trips were always disorienting and usually painful (to be expected, she supposed. Cross-dimensional travel without a capsule was rough, after all) but this time the journey had seemed especially difficult, for some reason. Upon arrival, her first order of business was usually to get her facilities together and then to find an inconspicuous place to assess her whereabouts and...whenabouts, before inevitably pressing the recharge for the dimension cannon's recall (always in disappointment). The charge took several hours to build and, in that time, Rose was _supposed_ to lay low and not interfere with anything, but, more often than not, she was pulled (or she jumped headfirst) into some sort of _situation_, despite Pete and Mickey's chastisements when she returned. Her team was able to monitor her vitals from through the device on her wrist, but other than that, she was on her own and, as they so often liked to remind her, if she got into any serious trouble...there wouldn't be anyone sweeping in to save her. Not this time.

She'd just taken that as a challenge. She just had to save herself these days, that was all.

But despite the disappointments and despite the increasingly close shaves, with every new day came that little spark of hope that never died, no matter how many jumps she made.

Maybe this time, she'd be lucky. Maybe this time she would find him.

Maybe...

Or maybe not.

Weellllll, in the meantime, these adventures, these dramatic rushes of adrenaline, these tiny little opportunities to stand up and to make a difference somewhere, somewhen, made her think of the lone, stalwart, pinstriped figure somewhere out in the cosmos for whom she was doing all of this, anyway. And they also made her hope that somewhere, somewhen, he was doing the same and thinking of her.

The explosion of light behind her eyes and the ringing in her ears that always accompanied the jump finally subsided and Rose attempted to regain her balance as the cannon deposited her with a running go on the ground. She stumbled and shook her head, trying to clear it. Sometimes these situations turned life and death so very quickly, she needed to think, she needed to react, she needed to…

Trip, apparently. Bollocks.

Amazingly, instead of planting herself face-first into the ground, however, her shoulders were caught on the way down by a pair of sturdy hands with a cry of concern and an odd but warm, pleasant feeling of home. She'd have to examine that feeling in a moment.

But for now...everything was getting a bit fuzzy around the edges.

No, no, that wasn't good. _No passing out, Rose. Remember how that went the last time?!_ she thought furiously to herself. But she'd apparently chosen to not listen to herself today because the nasty ringing was back and it just kept getting louder and louder for some obnoxious reason.

"Miss? Miss, are you all right?" a hazy voice asked, concern evident even in the brusque Scottish brogue as a man shook her shoulders lightly. It was very lucky she'd been caught, Rose thought, because she'd had to break her left wrist to get out of a pair of shackles not too many jumps ago (the last time she'd passed out, actually) and it was still rather tender.

But accent grazed rather pleasantly against her increasingly blurred reality as did the slightly cool hands she could feel checking her pulse point even as she fought to stay upright. Rose forced herself to look up at the man who was clutching her and that mysterious feeling of warmth suffused her again as she blinked into his gaze. Those were gorgeously ancient eyes. Powerful. Timeless. Stormy. Oh, that was good. She was a big fan of Storms. She giggled to herself, although, in this moment, she wasn't sure exactly why.

Her stranger's eyes were wide and blue and concerned and...

Wait...timeless? And stormy? And blu-

Oh. And wrong. Wrong blue. Wrong eyes. Wrong face. Wrong...

Oh, no.

"Oh. You're the wrong one," she slurred, frowning slightly as her awareness retreated further. Oh, well, consciousness didn't seem like it was going to be sticking around much longer. That wasn't good. It was never good to pass out in a new dimension.

"The wrong what?" the strange man asked. When she didn't answer, his own frown grew deeper. "Person? Man? Alien? Time Lord?"

"No, silly," Rose snorted, looking rather dazedly at his odd question mark-ed jumper. The pattern on it was fascinating and puzzling and she was feeling very, very odd. "The wrong _Doctor_," she declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.

And then she promptly lost consciousness, falling out of his surprised grip, against the door of the TARDIS with a thump.

-

_Well_, the Doctor thought. _This was going to be interesting._

-

He stared down at the girl who had - literally - appeared out of thin air (the air was, actually, very thin on this planet, compared to Gallifrey, anyway, although - depending on where she had come from, perhaps she had appeared out of heavy air. Where _had_ she come from?) and contemplated what to do next. Ace was gallivanting about the small, rural (and, he'd deemed, very safe) village they'd landed near and so he was on his own for a bit. He'd promised to give her a few hours of freedom (but had figured he'd go check on her in an hour or so - just to make sure there hadn't been any inexplicable explosions). Anyway, the TARDIS seemed rather insistent that he bring the girl inside and so, for lack of anything else to do, he complied.

He tried to take her to the MedBay but the TARDIS kept switching the corridors on him, showing him the library again and again until he finally acquiesced. After checking her over a bit and deciding that nothing was threatening her life, he'd laid her on the new, baffling couch that had appeared by the fire. He would like to take a closer look at that left wrist of hers but didn't want to do it without her permission and he couldn't get a read on her mental signature or timelines, so instead, he retrieved the emergency medical supplies he kept in the cupboard in here, he pulled his favourite armchair up nearby and he settled in to watch her (and to examine the odd device she'd had around her other wrist, which he had, of course, pilfered).

He did so love a good mystery.

-

Rose drifted back into consciousness slowly, her mind pulling like uncooperative taffy. She was warm and safe and there was a comforting hum that she hadn't felt in a long time soothing her ragged psyche. Sighing happily, she stretched out on an oddly familiar couch and snuggled down into the cushions. However, as her cognizance seeped back in, she started to piece back together a few rather terrifying pieces of the amorphous, edgeless puzzle that was her life nowadays and she suddenly sat up, worry now chasing away happy memories.

Fighting the wave of dizziness brought on by the abrupt change in position, Rose shook her head and then automatically checked her wrist for the one connection she had back to the other dimension.

It was gone.

A slight cough came from about a meter away and, with great trepidation, Rose lifted her eyes to meet the gaze of the very man she was searching for, despite being several years (centuries?) early. Rose wasn't certain how she knew that she was too early (far, far too early) in his timeline, but she knew. It probably had something to do with the shiny golden box in the back of her mind that even this TARDIS' eager consciousness buzzed against happily.

Rose drank him in hungrily, filing away every minute detail of this small, older body because there was no doubt in her mind that he was the Doctor, her Doctor, even though she'd never seen this form. There was something in his aura that spoke of the weight he carried, of the self-given burdens that he shouldered for the universe, even this early in his life.

She wasn't sure exactly how she was going to handle this situation...it wasn't as if she'd ever been handed a guidebook on how to navigate the tricky waters of a very complicated relationship with a puzzling, temporally-sensitive being, especially one as mercurial as the Doctor. But, she was at least going to have to speak to him, so Rose simply blurted out the first thing of which she thought.

"Hello," she said.

Well, that was brilliant. She suppressed a sigh and then gave him the wide, friendly smile she used when she knew Torchwood was going to be able to help. Or when she knew she was going to have to lie through her eyeteeth.

Sometimes both at the same time.

"Hello," he replied, calmly, giving her an expression that, to her amusement, seemed to be the direct mirror of her own. Oh, sometimes she did wonder what, exactly, she was becoming (or, more to the point, _who_).

When Rose offered no other explanation (mostly because she couldn't think of one), the Doctor took it upon himself to speak next. "Were you searching for me?" he asked, eyes slightly narrowed at her.

Something delightful inside her tripped over those trilled r's...Scottish, huh? Oh, he had some explaining to do there. Did lots of planets have a Scotland, then? Had he ever been Scottish before? Would he ever be again? And would she ever get to find out?

The Doctor continued to watch her closely, a familiar, carefully-crafted, nonplussed expression on his face, which made Rose smile again. It was so, so good to see him again. On the inside, she wondered if she was hiding the love she had for him at all or if it was shining through her every move, radiating from her every thought.

On the outside, she made a noncommittal gesture with her head but didn't answer and so he continued, looking slightly irritated and very perceptive, an expression she recognized from another set of blue Doctor-eyes. "Because just before you passed out, you told me that I was the wrong Doctor."

"Did I?" Rose asked, vaguely, flexing her fingers and her left wrist only to flinch at its continued tenderness. "Don't mind me. I'm a bit mad," she finished, grinning up at him with a tongue-touched smile. Before he could say anything else, she stretched, cracking her back.

"Passed out, huh?" she repeated, looking at him for confirmation. When he nodded, eyes still slightly narrowed at her, she sighed. "Bit embarrassing, that. I learned pretty early on that passing out when crossing into a new dimension was a spectacularly bad idea."

"I'd never guess," he said, drolly, stretching out the 'r' and looking as though he was filing away 'crossing dimensions' with interest and a bit of trepidation. Good. She needed to give him just enough information to keep him interested but not enough to hurt things.

"Oh! Sarcasm! I've missed that," she said, smiling gently at him again and once again, she thought, successfully confusing the hell out of him. "But anyway. Passing out. Not good. Usually results in waking up in a jail. Or a medical bay of some sort. And that, especially, is not for anything good." Her gazed darkened a moment and then lit up once more. "Except on Altarian Four. I passed out there and woke up in a bar called 'The MedBay' with no shoes. And in different socks, interestingly enough. Locals were kind enough to give me a lovely fizzy drink for my troubles and sent me on my way. Anyway, thanks for the, er, carry into your ship. If you'll just give me my property back, I'll be on my way."

"How do you know this is a ship?" he asked, gesturing around the, to anyone else, normal-looking library. He made no move to hand over the device.

Instead of answering, Rose merely raised an eyebrow at him.

"You know my TARDIS," the Doctor stated matter-of-factly and Rose let a smile quirk the edges of her mouth. He stared at her, still perplexed before continuing, "And you know me."

"Yes, Doctor," she replied, her smile growing despite herself. She had a feeling she wasn't hiding anything from him. "I know you."

"Do you know me well? Or, rather, do you _think_ you know me well?" he pressed, still sitting in his chair, fingers steepled together, eyeing her closely. There was the edge of something in his expression that she didn't like, a calculating and careful veneer protecting him from what, she suddenly realized, he perceived as a possible threat.

Rose blinked at him, unsure how to answer his question and a bit offended at his phrasing. There were a number of things she could probably say to him, things that she was certain only she knew or, at the very least, things that only someone very, very close to him would know, but she didn't want to frighten him. In all honesty, the people who knew the most about him were, in general, folks he didn't want to run into. She'd met a few of those along the way, as well.

She could instead relay to him things he'd revealed to her in intimate tones back when he'd been tortured and Northern and they had lain together, sweat-covered and sated, or when he'd been tortured and puppy-eyed and they had lain together, soft and satisfied. Memories of a sad, lonely childhood among red foothills, or of a wayfaring life of continued compromise, or of innermost worries of anxious insecurity, and the overwhelming, staggering need to always, always _run_.

Instead, she simply looked deep into his sharp, deep gaze answered, "Well enough."

"Ah," he replied, after a long, intense pause and a nod to himself. She wondered what, exactly, he had gleaned from that interaction. "Well, then, I'm sure you know that even future me wouldn't let you go until after I have garnered a few more answers. And fixed that bothersome fractured scaphoid," the Doctor countered, raising an eyebrow back at her.

"You're going to have to forget this," Rose cautioned.

"I expected as much," he replied, the eyebrow coming back down. "Been working on reorganizing this portion of my memory since I carried you in here. _She_has been rather insistent about it. Now then, who are you?"

"Rose Tyler," she answered, settling back into the cushions and breathing in deeply, enjoying the TARDIS' familiar smell and feel. She was determined to enjoy this experience as much as possible since she wasn't going anywhere soon and who knew how long it would be until she found him again.

_If you ever find him again,_, taunted the naysaying voice inside her that she typically ignored.

"So, you are a future companion of mine," the Doctor began. "When, if I may inquire, shall I have the honour of making your acquaintance, if you know?"

"I know your ninth and tenth forms," Rose replied, smiling at his barely-concealed look of surprise when she mentioned two of him. "For one, you're tall and dark and have a thing for leather and brooding and for the next, you're tall and bouncy with a thing for pinstripes and flirting."

Several different expressions warred for dominance on his comical face and Rose just sat back and enjoyed the show with a smirk. Finally, he said, "Tall, you say?"

Her grin widened.

"How about this you?" Rose asked, truly curious.

"A Time Lord never discusses his age," this small Doctor replied, sniffing slightly but smiling at her.

"I know that," she answered, rolling her eyes. "Trust me, you've told me anywhere between nine hundred and two thousand, depending on when I asked."

_And if we were in bed at the time,_ she added silently in her head with a wicked grin. She did so love to wind him up about his age, if only to get him to prove that it didn't matter.

Once again, he looked surprised. "Hmm," he murmured. "And I thought I was old now."

"You're not old," she scoffed. "Or at least not as old as you will be."

"No one is ever as old as they will be," he replied. "Or as young as they were."

"Except for you," Rose answered, smiling softly. "But then, you seem to be the exception to just about every rule."

"Yes," the Doctor said, looking at her askance again, as though he was trying to pull the answers to the unvoiced questions he really wanted to ask right out of her mind. Instead, he waved about the wrist communicator in his hand. "Speaking of rules, why, may I ask, are you gallivanting around the multiverse using this very dangerous bit of shoddy, subpar, Time Agency knock-off technology?"

"Oi! I helped design that, you know," Rose snapped reaching for her device and huffing at him as he kept it from her grip. "Not all of us took advanced temporal mechanics at fancy Time Lord school." Rose watched him out of the corner of her eye as he startled slightly again at the mention of the Academy. It had been difficult for her Doctors to talk about Academy life and she knew it wasn't just because Gallifrey was gone. She closed her eyes a moment, centering herself. Keep him interested, don't scare him off, distract him with banter. "Although, if I had, you can bet I wouldn't have failed it."

"I didn't fail," he sniffed, choosing to accept that she obviously knew a lot more about him than...well, pretty much anyone. "I passed all of my Academy classes, thank you very much."

"Yeah, by one point!" she teased, relieved that he was no longer pressing her for answers.

"I was making a point," the Doctor answered, puffing up slightly. "And you, madam," he pointed at her, "didn't answer my question."

Ah, who was she to deflect the master deflector? Well, honesty it was, then.

"I got separated from you," she began, ignoring the ache in her heart from just the mention of that day. "And that shoddy, subpar bit of technology is my ticket home."

"Why haven't I just come to get you?" the Doctor asked, carefully sidestepping her use of the word 'home' to represent him. The TARDIS poked him in annoyance. Fine, to represent _them_.

Rose sighed, heavily, and put her head in her hands a moment.

When her head finally lifted, the Doctor blinked in surprise at the change in her expression. She had been holding herself very carefully before that, he'd noticed. The pain and sadness he could sense inside her had been carefully hidden away, covered up by a cheerful, almost manic exterior and a blue leather jacket. But now, he could see just how tired she was, just how sad she was and he could see...well, some other things he didn't want to examine all to closely at the moment.

"It's complicated," Rose replied, finally. He opened his mouth argue, but she stopped him with a wearily-raised hand. "I know you want to ask more questions, I know you want to know more and I wish I could tell you, I really, really do. But it really is complicated and we have a lot of living together to do yet, for you anyway. And I really, really hope...for me, too. I know it's tough, but you're going to have to trust me on this one."

His brow furrowed more deeply. Well, he wasn't giving up that easily. "I already told you that I am going to file this memory away. Perhaps if you tell me your situation now, I might be able to assist you, since apparently I cannot in the future."

"The TARDIS told me not to," Rose answered with a small smile and a pat to the arm of the couch, surprising the Doctor yet again. "And, hard as it is to do all of this, to fight back to you the way I am, to scramble, tooth and nail for every foothold I can get, I think She's probably right." Rose drew herself up a bit taller in her seat, looking more like a warrior than he'd seen of her yet. "And I think there's more left for me to do yet, before I find you."

The Doctor opened his mouth to argue again, but then felt the nudge of his oldest, most trusted friend in his mind and, grumbling, agreed to Her terms. "Cross-dimensional travel is very dangerous, young lady," he began, using the tone of voice he sometimes used on Ace when she was being especially difficult. To his surprise, Rose merely laughed.

Although, to be fair, sometimes Ace laughed as well.

"No, no," she sputtered. "Don't go calling me that. No way."

"Whyever not?" he inquired, enjoying watching her laugh even if it was at his expense.

"It's far too weird, trust me," she giggled and then, to his utter shock, she winked at him and he felt the tips of his ears begin to burn.

As if he hadn't had enough surprises today.

Flustered, he cast about for a new topic and his gaze settled on the medkit he had pulled out. "May I see your wrist?" he asked and Rose smiled, holding out her left arm.

"Oh, I have missed the MedBay, I can tell you that," she said, sighing in relief as he spread some gel over the broken bone and then ran the Regenerator over it, activating the forty-third century cure. The heated gel seeped into her skin, re-connecting the bones and easing the swelling and bruising. "No one can heal a broken bone like you."

"So you've had multiple instances similar to this one, then?" the Doctor inquired, rather harshly, his fingers tight over the newly-healed skin, his eyes dark and flashing once more.

"Here and there," Rose replied, shrugging and attempting to pull her wrist from his grip. He, however, did not let go.

"Then I don't believe that I, any of me, would approve of you doing this, whatever it is. It is too dangerous, as I said," he finished, rather patronizingly.

"Danger! Ha! I laugh in the face of danger," Rose quoted, deflecting once again, her heart clenching even as she referenced his (future) favourite film. _Her_Doctor would have gotten that. This Doctor merely frowned at her further.

"This is not a joke," the Doctor scowled and Rose could tell that he'd just barely kept from adding 'young woman' to that sentence and suddenly she was just as annoyed as he was.

Rose tore her wrist from his grip, glad that it was healed and stood up, facing him, her own eyes flashing as he stood up to mirror her. "D'you think I don't know that? D'you think I don't realize that every moment of every one of these stupid jumps? I know it's not a joke! But this is my life, Doctor! It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just…" she stammered to a stop, realizing just whose words she was saying. She took a deep breath and met his stormy, dark blue eyes. "It's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will."

He stared at her a beat longer, just barely taller than her in this form, still radiating power and authority, still her Doctor, even in this younger/older body. "Not even me?" he asked, quietly, and Rose saw, for the first time, the bit of fear for the future in his tempestuous gaze.

"You're not there," Rose answered, honestly, her voice breaking.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and, to her enormous surprise, he pulled her into a tight embrace, which she returned desperately. The tattoo of his double hearts against her chest, the smell of him, tea and time, and the feel of his strong, capable arms around her, even a different pair, had her finally shedding a few of the tears that had been living behind her eyelids and her strong exteriour for months.

How long they stood like that, Rose wasn't certain (although he could probably tell her, to the nanosecond). But eventually, her tears subsided and the Doctor pulled away, the back of his hand grazing against her cheek for a moment, following the tracks of her tears.

"Come with me," he said, solemnly, taking her hand.

He led her back to the console room, which Rose observed with fascination, cataloging differences to keep herself from breaking down once again, this time over her impending departure. It was only a matter of moments, she knew.

The Doctor let go of her hand and busied himself with something on the console, allowing her to wander around the room, running her hands over the smooth white walls and lit roundels.

She was whispering compliments to the TARDIS when she heard the Doctor cough once again, this time from across the room. Rose patted the wall once more and walked back to him, noticing for the first time, that the object he had been messing with had been her wrist connector to the dimension cannon.

He held it out to her and Rose noticed right away that there were several new bits attached (rather haphazardly) to the device. "I've made a few...modifications," he confessed, smiling at her sheepishly.

"Like what?" Rose asked, genuinely curious, turning the altered technology over in her hands.

"Well, first of all, I've integrated a small, self-powered quantum loop shield, which will help with some of the discomfort and disorientation of these 'dimension jumps' of yours," he began. "And I have also upped the power intake and charging quotient, so it shouldn't take so long to ah, reset, between jumps. Just in case you end up somewhere that you really don't wish to be," he continued, raising his eyebrows meaningfully.

Rose smiled at him and threw her arms around his neck, surprising him. That was her Doctor.

He returned the hug and then eased free of her embrace, looking a bit mischevious. "And one more thing," he said, walking with her over to the doors of the TARDIS and holding them open for her.

"Yes?" Rose asked, reluctantly stepping through the weathered blue door of her (future/past) home and strapping the connector back onto her wrist.

The Doctor reached over and, to her surprise, pricked his finger on a tiny needle attached to a miniature vial she hadn't even noticed. A drop of ruby liquid fell into the small container, which then hissed and receded into the mechanics of the device.

"Now, it will target me. You'll only appear where I am. Or at the very, very least, where I have recently been," he finished, pulling his hand back and watching her closely.

She stared at him, amazed. It was a priceless gift he was giving her and an enormous amount of trust. She sniffled, trying not to cry again. She was so much closer to finding him now. She would find him, she knew she would.

The Doctor shifted under her gaze. "Of course, it could send you to any of me but...at least you'll be safe."

Rose raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.

He smiled at her, a silly little grin she wished she could see more often on this daft face. "Well, saf_er_."

"Thank you," Rose managed, letting out a watery chuckle. "For everything."

"You're very welcome, I do believe," he answered, reaching out to once again brush his knuckles lightly across her face. With even that light connection, Rose thought perhaps he saw more of their future than he let on. She focused on the feeling of them standing so close to one another, of his cool fingertips on her flushed cheek, and she poured all of her love into that touch, willing him to feel it, willing him to understand. They smiled at one another for a long moment before his hand dropped and Rose looked away to adjust the dials on her wrist connector, punching in the necessary coordinates to take her back to Mickey and Pete and Torchwood.  
He took a step back from her and Rose looked up, suddenly, desperate for one last connection with him even as she felt the cannon's pull begin. "Doctor!"

"Yes?" he replied, tilting his head to the side and watching her with a soft expression she thought, once again, she had seen on two other Doctor-faces.

"To answer your question...yes, I was looking for you."

His bright eyes crinkled as his smile widened. "Why?"

"I think you might know the answer to that," she answered, smiling at him once last time.

"Indeed," he murmured softly, flexing the fingers of his right hand, the hand that had been so recently resting on her cheek.

And then she was gone.


End file.
